Ten minutes later I stood before Dingaan, who greeted me kindly enough, and began to ask a number of questions about the Boers, especially if they were not people who had rebelled against their own king and run away from him.
I answered, Yes, they had run away, as they wanted more room to live; but I had told him all about that when I saw him before.

He said he knew I had, but he wished to hear "whether the same words came out of the same mouth, or different words," so that he might know if I were a true man or not.

Then, after pausing a while, he looked at me in his piercing fashion and asked: "Have you brought me a present of that tall white girl with eyes like two stars, Macumazahn?
I mean the girl whom you refused to me, and whom I could not take because you had won your bet, which gave all the white people to you; she for whose sake you make brothers of these Boers, who are traitors to their king ?" "No, O Dingaan," I answered; "there are no women among us.

Moreover, this maid is now my wife." "Your wife!" he exclaimed angrily.

"By the Head of the Black One, have you dared to make a wife of her whom I desired?
Now say, boy, you clever Watcher by Night; you little white ant, who work in the dark and only peep out at the end of your tunnel when it is finished; you wizard, who by your magic can snatch his prey out of the hand of the greatest king in all the world--for it was magic that killed those vultures on Hloma Amabutu, not your bullets, Macumazahn--say, why should I not make an end of you at once for this trick ?" I folded my arms and looked at him.